


not the good things, nor the bad

by deadlybride



Series: it started with the kinks [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Panty Kink, Season/Series 11, Slight Canon Divergence, Slight D/s Elements, brief Dean/others
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 16:20:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7113256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wavers in a grey area between being taken and giving in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not the good things, nor the bad

**Author's Note:**

> Here is another sequel that, this time, really no one was asking for, but once again I couldn't stop thinking about it. In a healthy, adult relationship, you should talk to your partner about whatever's bothering you. Unfortunately, sometimes you're Dean Winchester, and that can become a problem.
> 
> This takes place between the end of the previous story, set after "Into the Mystic," and ends just before "The Vessel." Because I accidentally presaged the ending of "Love Hurts" in the previous story, their Valentine's day case will be different.
> 
> Title from the translation of "Je ne regrette rien," by Edith Piaf; the opening quotation is from the Areopagitica, by John Milton.

_What wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian._

 

 

Fingers push into his mouth: slow, steady. He lets his jaw drop, lips slack and soft. The fingers slide slickly over his tongue, pinning it down, but he wasn't going to struggle. The world spins outside of his closed eyes, whirling like he's drunk. He might be drunk. His head tips back. He feels weighed down, like his bones are full of dull heavy metal, his stomach lined with lead. A hand lands on his forehead, pushes so his neck's tilted at a sharper angle, and gravity unseats a little more, the earth reeling past a little faster. A thumb grazes his temple and he knows without words needed that he's meant to open his eyes, so he does, and in the grey hazy world spinning around him Abaddon's hair shines bright as fresh-spilled blood—or, no, he thinks dimly, more like rust, when it builds up thick and nasty on ill-treated steel. Her hand fists in the hair at the back of his head and her fingers push deeper, settle right at the back of his tongue, but he doesn't gag. She smiles with her red red mouth. _Suck_. He closes his lips obediently, then his eyes when she wrenches his head back harder. Tongues against her tasteless skin. _You look so good like that_. He doesn't know. _Suck harder._ He does. Gravity slip-slides and he could do this forever. He opens his eyes again to find everything greyer, and Amara's smiling down at him in that delighted way she has, three fingers in his mouth now and her other hand holding his throat, cupped tight around his windpipe, and _you're so good, that's just right,_ and her arm starts to dissolve, the strong tanned line of it swirling away into more of that odd smoke (not black, not a demon, but something—), and the pressure on his tongue doesn't ease but her skin is gone, her arm and her shoulder and her face are gone and there's nothing but the grey and he's being filled with it, cloying and thick and inhuman, unearthly as it pours down his throat. He's pinned there, on his knees, unafraid, uncaring, and she's in him all the way now and something inside his head says _see, see I told you, this is what it's going to be, forever_

His eyes slam open and he's alone, Christ, he's alone, and he fumbles for the lamp, manages to get it on after two tries. He's breathing shakily, can't seem to get enough air. He leans hard on one elbow, sinking into the memory foam, and drags his hand over his face.

His room is murky, the lamp too dim to clear the cobwebs of the dream out of his head. His dick's chubbed up in his boxer-briefs and he lets himself fall flat on his back, head hitting the mattress because the pillow's gone who-knows-where. He licks his lips but the dream's still there, clinging, and his mouth tastes sour-sweet and like the phantom flavor of something he can't name. He sits up, kicks free of the blanket, his breath still not settled, and can't help dropping his hand to his crotch, digging the heel of his hand in where the crossed wires in him are filling his dick. He can't do this. He doesn't _want_ to do this, and he yanks his hand away, arches his hips up and shoves his briefs down and off, suddenly frantic and clumsy with it. He rolls off the mattress and hauls open the top drawer in his dresser, finds what's not-quite-hidden there. He doesn't have to think.

Sam's not in his bedroom, or the shower room, or the archives. He's in the library, books piled all around him, laptop open. He's concentrating hard on something, but he still looks up, surprised.

"Hey," Sam says, half-shutting the laptop. "Is it—sorry, I've been working."

He hovers in the doorway, can't say anything. The lights are on—of course, they're always on—and Sam's lit up, his face tired but open, not hiding a thing. He glances at his watch, with a grimace, but when there's no response his eyes turn up again, then sharpen.

"Dean," he says, and Dean shudders just at that, his bones weak in his skin. He doesn’t feel like himself. It's like three in the morning and he's aching, deep, and somehow Sam must be able to see it because his jaw firms and he says, "Come over here," not hard but not really asking, either.

Dean comes over. Sam's pushing his chair back from the table, and he's about to stand, but Dean blocks that by stopping right in front of him, their knees brushing together. Sam looks up, considering, but then he's reaching out, he's grazing his knuckles over Dean's hip, over the pajamas he dragged on. "Dean," Sam says again, searching his face, and like a reflex Dean hooks his thumbs into the waistband, he pushes down, just barely, just like he always does—like he always used to do—and it's enough. Sam's hand slips under the pajamas to close over his crotch, over his dick where it's straining the satin, and Dean nearly sways on his feet before another hand is curling around his neck, pulling him down into a kiss consuming enough that his brain thankfully shuts off.

He crashes down, knees bruising on the hardwood. "Let's see," Sam says, close and quiet, and Dean sinks into it, twisted up inside. His shirt's hauled off and his pajama pants shoved down to his thighs so Sam can look, so he’ll do what Dean needs, and when thumbs drag against his temples his eyes shudder open because, God, that's just like—

Sam's curled over him, close and warm and smelling so goddamn good, so real. Dean licks his lips. With Sam's hair falling around his face and Sam's hand on the back of his neck, with Sam's breath in his mouth, he's surrounded, full, but there's still that cramp in his belly and he _wants._ He puts his hands high on Sam’s thighs, light, but asking.

It's bright in here, but Sam's eyes are dark when he pulls back. A thumb runs over Dean's lower lip and his mouth falls open, enough so that Sam can push into where Dean's salivating for it. He keeps his eyes on Sam's, as best he can, and runs his tongue over the warm salty skin, flicks the tip over the sharpness of the nail, and—oh, please, _Sammy_ —

A jerk, and then there's the clink of Sam's belt getting undone, the rasp of the zip. Dean's panting for it, already. Sam grabs his head, his neck, but it's only to keep him steady when Sam shoves the chair back, when he stands up right into Dean, warm jean-clad thigh against his cheekbone. "Okay?" Sam says, but he's getting hard, already, and so Dean doesn't have to say anything, just shuffles forward on his knees when Sam plants his ass on the edge of the library table to compensate for his height. Dean leans in, breathes in that smell. So much stronger here, real and right, that end-of-the-day heat hitting him right in his gut. He wants, his mouth is watering and he wants so bad, but he's frozen there, waiting, his hands clawed into the denim. Sam runs a firm touch over Dean's lips, again, but this time he traces those long fingers over his jaw, around to the back of his head to cup his skull and pull him close, in and in until he says, "Come on," a little breathless somewhere above Dean's head, but that's all the permission Dean needs to cave, to pull open the fly and haul down the plain blue boxers just enough to find Sam's fantastic dick half-hard, and he opens his mouth, lips the heat of the head for a second and then sucks it in, sinks gratefully down to the base in one slick push.

There's a burst of noise above him but he can't pay attention to that right now. He's almost light-headed with relief. There's salt, and musk, and the close-trimmed crisp of hair against his nose. The weight of it, like trust, heavy on his tongue and stretching his mouth wide. His hands tighten against Sam's thighs where he's bracing himself. They flex, the muscles there going taut, and Sam's getting harder in his mouth, swelling fast so he can't keep it all in, has to pull back a little so he won’t choke, even if he kind of wants to. Fingernails scrape gently over his scalp, big hands framing his head, and Sam's saying something, quiet, but Dean just hums, goading, and Sam's hips jerk forward and—and _finally_ , Sam's pushing into him, and Dean makes his mouth soft, open, tips his head as Sam's hands urge him to. Salt, and heat, and that bitter-brine tang blooming there in the back of his throat, pushing over his tongue with every thrust. Sam’s big enough that Dean can’t take the whole thing, not without more practice, but that shouldn’t be problem. He flattens his tongue against the thick vein, his lips straining at the corners. This is just—it’s been seven years but it’s just like he remembered, just like he needed, and Sam groans, pushes in where Dean’s wet and waiting for him, deep enough that Dean swallows, convulsively, has to drag in desperate air through his nose. When Sam curses and starts thrusting like he means it Dean holds on tight, his lungs and heart and stomach full of nothing but wanting. Sam’s hand is fisted at the back of his head, keeping him close, but right now there’s no way Dean could choose to be anywhere else.

 

Later, he opens his eyes. It’s warm and dark in his room. He breathes in and out, slowly, the nasty traces of yet another dream swirling discomfort through his stomach. At least he knows the taste in his mouth, this time: Sam’s flavor lingering in the back of his throat, jaw left aching from the stretch. Sam’s molded in a long hot line against his back. He must have pulled his clothes off after he put Dean to bed, and Dean’s back is sticking to his chest, their legs brushing warm and bare against each other. It’s familiar, but not.

"You awake?" Sam says, quiet. He's tracing his fingers in a slow pattern over Dean's shoulder, ticklish along the back of his arm, and Dean shivers. Sam's hand closes over the bone in a grounding grip, then slides down over his elbow, folds over his hip where lace is hugging his skin. Dean turns his face in toward the pillow, breathes in deep.

A finger runs under the waistband, slides around to the curve of his belly where his come has stained the fabric, where it's going stiff and tacky. "Definitely ruined, this time," Sam mumbles, and yeah, there's a tear at one of the seams from when Sam used the panties to drag him close, where he twisted them tight while he put his hands on Dean, while he breathed crazy things against Dean’s skin, demanding and greedy. "Sorry about that."

Dean doesn't answer. His heart's beating slow, breath even, but he feels weak, his arms and legs gone heavy and useless. Sam buries his nose in Dean's hair, in the vulnerable hollow at the back of his skull, matches his breathing to Dean's. The hand spreads out wide, fingers sliding under the waistband until they can cover his belly, half-tucked under the panties. If Dean were younger he'd be chubbing up again already, but as it is he just breathes, lets his muscles relax until his body molds itself to Sam's, trapped against his heat.

Sam's thumb brushes back and forth over his sticky skin, over the faint trail of hair under his navel. "We should get some more," he says, like he's continuing a conversation they'd been having. His breath is warm against Dean's neck. "Like you had, back then. Remember?"

It was a lifetime ago. Another lifetime. "Yeah," Dean manages, finally. His voice is a ruined croak. There's a shift, behind him, air slipping between their bodies for a second as Sam props his head up on one hand.

"What do you want?" Sam says, and Dean figures he's probably looking down at what little he can see of Dean's face, but he keeps his eyes closed, doesn't move. His cheeks are heating, but at least it's dark enough that Sam shouldn't catch it. Sam's voice is quiet. The tone would be almost conversational if Dean didn't know the current running through it. "Sky's the limit. What's your favorite? Satin, like this?"

The thumb swirls a little circle around Dean's navel, light and slow. "Satin's good," he says, barely audible.

There's a tickle of soft hair against his temple when Sam leans down. "What about silk?" It's a low murmur against the back of Dean's ear, Sam's lips brushing his skin. "Like... light pink, maybe, with a little lace like these?" Sam pulls his hand away from Dean's belly, slides his fingers down over the wrecked satin until he finds Dean's balls and can cup the shape of them, rolling idly through the fabric. "Would that be good, you think?"

Despite how Sam’s playing with him, Dean's not getting hard again, probably won't get there. He grits his teeth, doesn’t know what to say. Sam flexes against his ass, slow, but not like he needs to go again—it’s just comfortable, easy. Like it never was, before.

"I thought about it, you know?" Sam says, and Dean has no idea what he's talking about for a second. "I knew you'd look good in the blue. But what color do you want?"

He sucks in a breath, but there’s nothing to say. This isn’t—he’s not—they didn’t _do_ this, they didn’t talk about this kind of stuff. They’re good now, sure, after so many years of screwing up, screwing each other over, but this isn’t—this isn’t something Dean can discuss. “Dean, tell me,” he hears, but he doesn’t know. In some other life maybe he’d been able to, could think about this without feeling like something in his chest was going to crack, but as it is—this was never supposed to be him. He hates being this way with Sam, hates that he needs it like a goddamn crutch to get through this, to get what he wants, but Sam’s asking, he’s asking and he’s putting his hands on Dean, he’s waiting, and so Dean says, “Green,” out of nowhere, just because it’s something to say.

Sam kisses his temple, hair swinging down softly against Dean’s face, and then smiles against his skin. “Okay. I can work with that.” Dean curls one arm under his pillow, lets Sam wrap around him like a promise. His chest swells in a sigh against Dean’s back and Dean squeezes his eyes closed against the dark. This is good. It is good. No sense in thinking it should be otherwise.

 

1998\. Rhonda Hurley. When Dean was nineteen she was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. Long dark hair, great rack, wicked eyes, and legs that went all the way down to the floor, oh yes. Thank God Sam had been a mathlete that spring, staying after at school more often than not, so Dean had hours to himself with Rhonda goddamn Hurley, with her lush mouth and her wide-spread thighs and her pretty pink pussy, barely wrapped up and soaking through matching pink satin, so slick and soft and gorgeous Dean could hardly stand it. He’d mouth her through the panties until she was hitting him, demanding that he do something, and then he’d slide up between her legs and slip the panties to one side and fuck her just like she wanted, half-crazy with how the fabric slid against his dick, thumb slipping slick against the wet satin over her clit. He thought it had been about her. About how hot she was when she was going off like that, wanting him like that. Then, one afternoon, not an hour before he was supposed to pick Sammy up, she’d smiled at him with that spoiled pouty mouth and then arched her pretty body, slipped her soaked-wet panties off her hips, said _come on, do it for me, I just want to see—come on, Dean, do it_ and he had, of course he had, because she asked. They were too tight and the seams cut into his hips like fire and the soggy fabric clung clammily against his balls, but damn if he didn’t get rock hard again, swelling up through the see-through satin and straining it to its limits. When she shoved him in front of the mirror he didn’t look at her once, didn’t notice how wide and satisfied her smile got, because he was looking at himself in that color, in that thing he had no business being in, and she went down on him right there, slipped fingers into his ass for the first time right there, and he stared at himself and thought, _no, this isn’t me_ , and then came so hard he thought he pulled something.

Despite her offer, the panties stayed at Rhonda’s apartment; when Dad called and said to meet him in Ames it was a relief, no matter that Dean had to pack up what little life he’d accumulated, had to endure Sam’s bitching about yet another school over the three-hundred-mile drive. It was the hottest episode of his life so far, no doubt about it, but how raw and weird it made him feel, how wrong-footed—no. Better to leave it there. And there it stayed, right up until, clear-eyed and flush with cash and safe in his huge sterile apartment, Dean Smith went onto the internet and found a website and made some dumb fucking choices. Ruined the promise Dean made to himself. When Dean realized what he’d done, he thought he couldn’t feel more ashamed. The thing was—the thing is, it gave him Sam. Sam saw him and didn’t freak, didn’t mock Dean like he deserved; Sam wanted it, wanted Dean like that, when there was no way he would've otherwise. Seven years later, crumple of lace and satin in hand, it turned out that he still does. Dean guesses he should be thankful, but Dean Smith is long-gone, and Dean sure as hell isn’t sending him a fruit basket.

 

Dean wakes up out of a dream of grey to a kiss against his jaw, brief and dry. He stiffens, doesn’t know where he is for a second, but then there’s rustling around, cloth sliding, and he relaxes. Listens to the familiar sounds of his little brother getting dressed. They’re in Sam’s room and a little light is coming in through the grille at the top of the door, just enough that when he opens his eyes he can see Sam sitting on the edge of the bed, tying his shoes.

“Time is it,” Dean mumbles. His head refuses to clear.

“Six.” There’s a flash of blue light when Sam checks something on his phone, and Dean catches the limned edge of his profile, the calm line of his mouth.

“That’s ungodly,” Dean says, finally.

“Yeah, so I’ve heard,” Sam says, and turns off his phone screen, puts a hand on Dean’s hip. Familiar. “Going for a run. I’m guessing you’re not going to join me?”

“Left my masochism in my other pants,” Dean says. Sam snorts. He flops over onto his stomach, gathering Sam’s pillow in close to his face, but Sam’s hand doesn’t retreat—just slides up to the small of his back, easy. He curls into the shitty mattress but there’s nowhere else to go. Into the pillow, he says, “Turn on the coffee before you head out, Jim Fixx,” and Sam swirls his thumb in a little circle over Dean’s spine, but he goes.

Dean listens to the far-off creak of the front door. Lays awake in Sam’s bed, in the warm sheets, clean because they didn’t do anything. Last night was just—they had dinner, and then he dragged Sam away from his research and made him watch that freaky horror flick about the killer grandparents, and then nothing. He fell asleep at some point, Sam working away at something on his laptop next to him, and… that was it.

He just breathes for a minute, there in the dark. He doesn't know what Sam's doing. There’s a tension in his gut that’s just not going away, and eventually he has to stop thinking about it. He’s not going back to sleep either, not with what always seems to be waiting for him there, and he shoves himself upright with a groan. If he’s going to be up at six without a damn good reason, at least there’s going to be coffee.

Dressed and clean, working on caffeinated, he settles at the kitchen table with his laptop. The library is full of Sam’s stacks of books and scrolls and ancient yellowed documents, all part of his so-far fruitless search for ways to keep the Darkness at bay, and just being in there, thinking about it, makes Dean’s teeth hurt. He’s wandering through the news aggregator, the usual early-morning scan for weird that at this point requires no brainpower at all, but something keeps pulling at his attention. He opens up the site for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and blinks a few times, as some script on the page showers pink and red hearts all over his screen, and then, oh. Right. Today’s February 13th, and some Missouri florist is telling Dean _Don’t forget the big day—show your loved one how much you care!_

The pop-up blinks merrily at him, little animated rose petals falling around the reminder. Unattached drifter Christmas, Sam’s voice says in his head, and he stands up abruptly, goes for a refill on his coffee.

They haven’t talked about it. What they are. Of course they haven’t, because how would they even start that conversation? The first time, back then, it was just a few months. Dean spent half that time terrified and the other half pissed off—those nights when Sam stay put for him, when Dean would give himself up, they were mind-bendingly good but so fucked up that they couldn’t be something to be happy about. And then, when it was over—well. There wasn’t anything to be said, and there were significantly bigger fish to fry than figuring out whether what they’d demolished was a _relationship_.

He sits back down and closes the ad, starts skimming articles with more purpose. They’re getting nowhere with trying to fight against Amara, and getting out of the bunker, doing their real job, killing something bad—it’ll be good for them. If it also helps Dean avoid certain issues, all the better.

He doesn’t mention that last bit an hour later when Sam’s standing there guzzling water, sweat-damp and quizzical. “I mean, I’m all for taking out a vengeful spirit, believe me,” Sam says, pushing his wet hair back from his face. “But, you know, don’t you think—“

“There are more important things we could be doing?” Dean says, pouring himself the last of the coffee. Sam raises his eyebrows, like, _yeah, duh_. “I know. But we’ve been locked down here for like a week and we haven’t gotten anywhere. I’m just thinking, you know, we could actually make ourselves useful for once.”

Sam chews on the inside of his lip for a second, then sighs. “Couldn’t hurt to take a break, I guess. Come back to it with fresh eyes.”

Dean nods, toasting that with his mug. “There we go, my young padawan.”

Sam rolls his eyes, says, “Whatever. Let me take a shower first and then we can get on the road,” and then walks past Dean toward his bedroom, but not before he puts a big hand over the back of Dean’s neck, warm grip squeezing gently. Dean freezes, but Sam’s already down the hall, calling, “And if we could maybe not get the crap beaten out of us this time, that would be great.”

“No promises, Sammy,” Dean calls back, but his heart’s not in it.

 

Norfolk is a three-hour drive from the bunker, straight across the friggin' boring prairies of Nebraska. Sam’s irritatingly peppy from his run, but at least he mostly spends the drive reading from the print-outs Dean provided. “The asylum opened in 1888,” Sam says. “If it’s a spirit, it could've been fermenting for a long time.”

Dean shrugs, squinting against the mid-morning sun. He wishes he and Sam could keep track of a pair of damn sunglasses for longer than a week—it’s murder out here, with the fields half-covered in snow and sparking light back at the road. “Three people dead,” he says, finally, when he realizes Sam’s just been looking at him for too long. “If it’s an AARP ghost, it’s awfully busy with the living.”

Sam snorts, relaxing back into his seat. “Might not be a ghost at all,” he says, but he doesn’t sound concerned about it. “No point counting our chickens, I guess. How long ‘til we get there?”

Dean changes lanes to pass a slow-moving van. He wishes he’d had more coffee. “Hour or so.”

“Let’s get a motel tonight,” Sam says, and he’s watching Dean again, like he doesn’t seem to stop doing these days. “It’s too cold to sleep in the car.”

Dean takes a deep breath. “As you wish, princess,” he says, but all that does is catapult him toward wondering what Sam has in mind. He didn't bring anything, because the whole point was that they were supposed to be working, but maybe Sam wants... He shakes his head and cranks the volume on the tapedeck, and ignores Sam’s snort as the dueling guitars on _Heading Out to the Highway_ fill the car.

That afternoon, the director of the asylum is very definite in correcting Dean that the former State Hospital for the Insane is now a state-of-the-art medical facility. “Helping people build better lives,” she says, smiling. It’d sound better if that slogan weren’t on the banner on the wall behind her.

A group of guys in hospital garb shuffles through the lobby, past where they’re meeting with the young Dr. Kolb, and she turns her gentle smile on them. Dean watches them go, led away by a silent orderly. Remembers his own experience in a mental hospital with a shudder.

Sam doesn’t seem to notice, all his attention on the girl. “And the recent deaths? That wasn’t exactly part of the ‘better lives’ program, I’m guessing.”

To her credit, Dr. Kolb’s smile falters. She can’t be thirty yet, fresh-faced and pretty. “We’ve been working with the police,” she says, and swallows. “A lot of people are scared of our patients, or think that they’re… sinful, evil. Freaks. But we care about them, Agent McKagan.” She firms her jaw, looking back and forth between him and Sam. “None of our employees could have killed them. I’m certain.”

Later, in the Norfolk library, Sam rolls back from the microfilm with a sigh. “Well, Kolb was half-right.”

A nurse, killed just after the turn of the century, holier-than-thou religious and killed by a group of patients. It was messy, and violent, and even Dean can read between the lines of the old-timey article and see that they’d done a little more than kill her. “Jesus. You can almost see her point.”

“Yeah, well, these guys aren’t those guys,” Sam says, rubbing a hand over his face. He looks tired, and Dean’s struck by the urge to touch him. He tucks his hands between his knees, instead. “Now all we’ve got to do is figure out where she’s buried.”

“Says here she was a Catholic,” Dean says. “We can visit some of the churches in the morning, figure out which graveyard she was planted in.”

“Assuming she wasn’t cremated,” Sam says. He shakes his head, but then stands, stretching the hunch out of his back from sitting in front of the microfilm for so long. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

On the library steps, Dean hesitates for a second, and Sam looks up at him from the bottom. His hair’s lit up gold with the setting sun, but his face is in shadow. “What’s up? Come on, I saw a motel a few blocks away.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. A motel. “I’m starving,” he says, moving down the steps and along the sidewalk to where they left the Impala. Sam trails along behind him. “Saw something called a Panda Garden in the phonebook—how’s about I drop you off, you get a room, and I’ll bring you some General Tso’s?”

Sam shrugs. “Whatever, sounds good,” he says, “but get me the moo goo gai pan.”

“Dude, you know I feel stupid ordering that,” Dean says, wrenching open the car door. Sam just smiles at him, all obnoxious little brother, and Dean’s still giving his best fake-irritated patter when he drops him off in front of the Super 8, when he sends Sam into the office with their bags and leaves the coming decision in his hands.

He’s sitting in the little waiting area of Panda Garden, knee jogging unstoppably, when his phone buzzes with a text. _Room 115. Don’t forget the veggie dumplings_. He huffs a laugh, despite the nerves that won’t leave him, and texts back _I asked them to make everything with extra MSG just for you_.

The lady at the register tells him it’ll be another five minutes. He heads to the bathroom, takes a piss, washes his hands and then splashes water on his face. He’s overheated, with the restaurant cranking the thermostat in defense against a shitty Nebraskan February. He drags a paper towel over his face, breathes into the damp of it for a second. He doesn’t know what he wants Sam to have picked, what he’s hoping for room 115 to be. What it would mean, either way.

When Dean pulls up to the motel the room’s window is yellow with light, the curtains drawn closed. Sam opens the door before he’s even got the Impala in park. “Where was this place, Iowa?” he says, mild, as he takes the box of takeout from Dean.

“Yeah, yeah. Next time you can buy yourself dinner,” Dean says, leading the way into the room, and—two beds. A weird twist goes through his belly and he closes his eyes for a second. Two beds. Okay.

They eat on their separate mattresses, talking over the top of crappy reception on _Casablanca_. Dean nails Sam in the shoulder with one of his dumb veggie dumplings and Sam rolls his eyes, put-upon, but a dimple cuts into his cheek. Outside it’s a still, icy dark, but in here Sam’s relaxed, it’s warm, and if it’s not home and if Dean’s still precariously balanced on the middle of the see-saw in his chest—well, it’s good enough.

He dreams that night of Sam, but not the Sam of now—Sammy at eighteen, hopping mad and bitter and self-righteous, screaming at Dad about… who knows what. Dean’s dream-self watches the argument as though underwater, the furious hurt of the words hitting him in the gut even if he can’t understand a word being said. He’s lost, wants to get between Sam and Dad and plead with them, shove them apart like he had so many times before. But he’s paralyzed, invisible, and a low voice is at his ear: _so much pain, so many terrible memories, wouldn’t it be better to come with me, to sink into oblivion, into bliss._ With the words Sam turns his blazing angry eyes directly at Dean. Dad’s gone, somehow, and Sam stalks across the kitchen and grabs Dean by the jaw, shoves him back against rickety kitchen cabinets, looks him up and down. _No_ , Sam says _, what's the point of this_ , and pushes him away, disappears, and Dean falls back into the dark—no, it’s not dark, it’s grey—and he wakes up, hands curled into fists in the pillow, when Sam (his Sam, Sam of now) says, “Dude, it’s like eight o’clock already, get up,” and it’s morning, he blinks and Sam’s sitting on the other bed, raising his eyebrows and smiling a little, and—right. Right, okay. There’s a case. He can do this.

Coffee, shower, coffee again. Turns out there are two Catholic churches in Norfolk and they make their way, slowly, through both. At St. Mary’s Sam speaks with the priest after the mass and Dean stays behind, playing the historian and studying the arches, the glasswork, rests his hands on the last pew and gives it all his weight. God, he's tired. At Sacred Heart, Dean takes his own turn, and Father Thomas leads him on a little tour of the nave, takes him out into the cold February morning and walks him through the cemetery. “Lots of land here,” Thomas says, hands folded over his broad stomach. “Lots of sky. Nothing to get in the way of heavenly contemplation.”

“Must be nice,” Dean says, absently. They’re going through an older section of the cemetery and he’s scanning the headstones, doing his best to read the weather-beaten names. Hopefully Sam’s having better luck with the parish records, assuming that he broke into the father’s office as planned.

“You missed the sermon this morning,” Father Thomas says, pausing. Dean’s forced to a stop next to him—they’re in front of a taller marker, a dark obelisk whose shadow has protected a triangle of snow from the sun. “Too bad. I try to put in something a little special for St. Valentine’s day.”

Dean shivers, tucks his hands into his pockets. The snow is filtering cold up from his boots. “Didn’t know the Catholics were into the whole chocolates and flowers thing.”

Thomas snorts. “If they overindulge, they’re always free to confess it the next morning.” He looks out over the desolate graveyard, all dead yellowed grass and mud and snow. “Valentine is the patron saint of love and marriage, which is probably where all this nonsense got started. But it’s a draw to the parishioners. I just fail to mention that his acts are 'known only to God,' as His Holiness said. Doesn't sound good when we don't really know what the saints got up to.”

“Right,” Dean says, thinking of Sam kneeling in supplication by his bed, eyes screwed shut in desperation. There are questions he could ask. About martyrdom, or sacrifice. He wonders what this small-town priest could possibly add to the Winchesters’ perspective, and something in his stomach sours.

Luckily Sam arrives then, five minutes later than he was supposed to. "Thank you so much, Father," he says, with a tight smile, his shoulder brushing Dean's. Dean stiffens, but Sam stays right where he is, practically pressed up against his side. "I think we've got everything we need for this chapter in our book."

Thomas nods amiably at the two of them. "Go with God," he says, and Dean's hands clench into fists in his pockets, but then the father's walking off between the gravestones, light glinting off his grey hair.

"Tell me you have something," Dean says, eyes on the back of the receding black frock. He desperately needs another cup of coffee.

They wait until ten that night to return to the cemetery, retreading by moonlight the same path Dean had walked with the priest. It's dark, and cold, and Dean's fighting a headache as he trudges along behind Sam. When they’re mostly hidden from the street, a light floods the ground in front of them—Sam's flashlight, held low, and Sam glances back at him. His face is lost in shadow, just the gleam of his eyes and teeth showing in the dark. "She's back in the northeast corner," he whispers. Dean shrugs, unaccountably irritable, gestures for him to keep going.

It's really the perfect cap to his day when, as soon as Sam's flashlight lands on the correct battered headstone, an even colder wind picks up, whistling around their ankles and cutting ice right through Dean's jacket. "Oh, come on," he says, but there's light pouring up out of the hard-packed dirt, filmy nothing coalescing into a half-pretty woman, her face contorted with bruising and a broken jaw and raw disgust, dark stains all over her torn-up dress.

"Dean—" Sam starts, but _filth, you're filth,_ the nurse says, ruined face screaming but the words emerging as a whisper right into Dean's ears. Sam staggers back from an invisible blow. She dives forward, hands outstretched and looking to bury right into Sam's chest, and he falls onto his back to dodge it before Dean fumbles the salt out of his jacket pocket, flings a line of it through her so she dissolves with a furious wail.

"Well, this is gonna suck," Dean says. They scramble to start digging, but Elma Heidrich is as tenacious in death as she was in life, when she did all she could to ruin the men assigned to her care, when she assured them that they were as far from God as they could be, that they were destined for Hell no matter what they did or how they atoned. She reforms again and again, and eventually Sam just stays up top, using the free salt as long as possible before he finally has to bring up the shotguns—and then it's a race, the boom of the shotgun's report rattling through the small city cemetery, Dean's breath coming strained and fast as he digs through the half-frozen ground as fast as he can. He's just breaking through the old wood of the coffin when there's a strangled shout and he pops his head above the grave's edge to find the bitch floating above Sam, hands crossed over his throat.

"Hello nurse!" Dean shouts, hauling himself half out of the grave. Her face snaps to the right, greyish blood pushing forth between her bared teeth, and Dean half-aims Sam's dropped gun and gets her right in the chest so that her shade bursts apart. There's a huge gasp from Sam, and Dean hopes he didn't get him with the salt, but then he's shoving right back into the hole, the slam of his boot heels busting the lid all the way open, and Sam gets himself together enough to roll the bottle of kerosene Dean's way, and Dean breaks open his spare salt shells, douses the rot and dust of the bitch's bones, and Sam heaves him backwards out of the grave and away from the reformed ghastly sight of her just in time for the remains to light up, fire leaping up and washing warmth over Dean's skin even as the ghost screams, loud, for real this time, panic widening her bruised eyes before it catches in her, sparks eliding the spirit and finally ending it. Ashes to ashes.

They sit there for a second, gasping for air. Sam’s hands are still locked tight onto Dean’s arms and his knee is jabbing into the small of Dean’s back, but he’s warm and alive, and so everything else is gravy.

Sam drops his forehead onto Dean’s shoulder. Dean wants to just pass out, lay down there with Sam on the cold dead grass and let Sam curl up around him. After a few seconds, there’s a huff of laughter, Sam’s breath gusting hot against the back of Dean’s neck.

“’Hello nurse,’ really?”

Dean drops his chin to his chest. “Whatever, man.” Sam’s hands finally release their death-grip on his arms and he straightens up a little, dislodges Sam from his shoulder. “It was the first thing that popped into my head. Not like you were any help. Who gets choked out by an evil spirit, seriously.” He heaves himself to his feet, pushing off of Sam’s bent up knee.

“Uh, me. Like, every time,” Sam says, dry. “Also, ow, I’m not a jungle gym.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Dean says, and finally looks down at Sam. Yeah, there’s the reddened skin on his throat, where he’s had bruises so many times before, but otherwise he looks fine—and he’s looking right back at Dean, calm and easy, the firelight flickering over the planes of his face. There’s a far-off wail of a siren—one of the nice citizens of Norfolk reporting in gunfire in a cemetery, no doubt—and Sam sighs, stands up with a groan. “Come on, we’ll get you back to the motel, put a little ice on it.”

“What, my throat or my knee?” Sam says, grinning, and Dean shoves his shoulder, says, “Just for that, you have to carry the shovels,” and they pick their way out of the back of the cemetery, no traces of themselves left behind when they jump the back fence.

It’s a quick jog to where they hid the car, and from there a short drive to the motel. Dean sends Sam in to take the first shower and grabs ice from the ancient machine out next to the motel office. Another cop car goes racing by, siren blaring, as he walks back down the sidewalk to their room. He wonders if anyone at the station will put together the fact that the weirdly regular murders of the recovering sex offenders ended with the desecration of some random grave. Probably not.

The lamp between the two beds is on when he gets back to the room, dim yellow lighting up the weird paisley wallpaper. He tosses his jacket over the desk chair, wrestles off his boots, sits on the edge of the squeaky mattress that's his and closes his eyes and wishes they were home. He’s starting to really hate motels.

Sam comes out of the bathroom in a rush of steam, hips wrapped in a towel. Dean gestures at the bucket of ice, the field-dress compress he’s made from one of his t-shirts, and Sam gives him a half-smile, flinching as he holds it up against his throat. “Don’t ice it for too long,” Dean says, and Sam rolls his eyes, like, _yeah, I have done this before_ , and he’s being Dean’s little brother, he’s letting Dean nag him, and so it’s a weird stomach-turning moment when he turns around and Dean watches the muscles of his back flex, water rolling down the golden skin in torturously slow droplets.

Dean’s own shower lasts for a long time. When he finally comes out, in a t-shirt and boxer-briefs, Sam’s half-drowsing in bed, the icepack a melted puddle in the room’s sink. “Thought you were gonna drown,” Sam mumbles, into his pillow, and Dean drops down into the other bed, doesn’t say a thing. He doesn’t want to dream. Knows he’s going to. Sam rolls over, putting his back to the lamp. His half-dry hair is a dark muss on the pillow, his shoulders wide and bare under the blanket, and Dean wants to crawl in with him, wants to push himself up against warm real skin, but—but they aren’t doing that right now. Sam got them two beds for a reason.

He turns on the television, makes sure it’s on mute. He flicks to one of the local channels and finds an infomercial, full of smiling people with too much makeup going on and on about the benefits of some weird contraption for chopping vegetables. This won’t be the first night he’s spent like this, and certainly won’t be the last. Sam’s breathing slow and steady, over in the other bed, and Dean doesn’t dare close his eyes. Not yet.

 

Grey. He’s sitting in the Impala but it’s a ruined, broken thing—glass shattered, the hood twisted and crumpled, leaves and dirt all over the floorboards. He’s got his feet out on the ground, sitting sideways in the driver’s seat. There’s smoke and darkness all around and Amara’s standing there, amid a wild tangle of weeds and yellow flowers, looking at him. There’s a lump in his throat. He wants to cry, like he hasn’t in years, but he can’t seem to move. She’s reaching out one hand, and it would be a relief, at this point. To take it, to give in. _Wouldn’t it be easier_ , he hears, _wouldn’t it be simpler with me? No choices, no regrets._ Yeah. He leans into the creaking, worn seat, wants to close his eyes. Big hands close over his shoulders, smooth down over the planes of his chest to cover up his heart. _No need to be strong. No need to think. You’ll be a part of me. Forever. Don’t you want that?_ There’s a weight on his tongue, holding it down, and he can’t answer. Doesn’t know what he would say, anyway. The grey all around is getting darker. Things are moving out in the misty smoke, but Amara doesn’t look away from him, not once.

 

They pull into Lebanon around noon. Sam wants to stop by the post office, so Dean takes the car over to the grocery store. Beer, stuff for hamburgers, pasta. He ignores the heart-shaped candies marked down to half price, the red roses drooping a little in their glass case. Estelle barely looks away from her magazine to ring him up—Sam claims she’s a sweet old broad, but Dean’s never seen it. “Have a good one,” he says, and she grunts at him.

When he comes out of the store, irritated, Sam’s leaning against the car. “Estelle still not flirting with you?” he says.

“Can it, Sammy.”

“Guess she doesn’t like ‘em short,” Sam says, all fake sympathy, but he’s fighting a grin and it ruins the effect.

Dean rolls his eyes, tosses the plastic bags into the backseat. “You’re not funny,” he says, and it’s supposed to come out—well, it’s not supposed to make Sam's smile falter like that, but Dean is—he’s _tired_ , okay, he just wants to go home and not deal with this shit anymore. It shouldn’t be too much to ask.

They ride the twenty minutes back home in silence, under the sounds of Bruce Dickinson screeching out _run to the hills, run for your life_. Dean’s gritting his teeth, a headache starting to spread up from the back of his skull, when they finally park the Impala outside the bunker.

“You need any help with the—“

“I got it,” Dean says, grabbing the bags out of the backseat. “I’ll make something for lunch.”

“Okay,” Sam says, brow furrowed, but Dean’s already heading down into the entranceway, opening up the bunker with the Letters’ key, and behind him he can hear Sam following, probably getting their bags and the guns and the shovels and everything, but—well, Sam can handle it.

He’s just slapping the burgers into the pan when there’s sudden acoustic guitar, echoing down from the war room and library. The volume wavers a little, but it's loud enough that he can hear that familiar moan: Zeppelin III, side two. His shoulders relax a little. The meat’s sizzling in the pan and it’s starting to smell good, and Sammy put on some music, and maybe—maybe it can be okay. He rolls his head in a slow circle, the muscle and tendon protesting, and keeps his eyes on the burgers, on the way the red’s slowly seeping away. Time to flip, soon.

Sam’s sitting in the amber-lit library, as expected, and he nods his thanks when the plate gets put at his side but he doesn’t comment. A little more tension seeps out of Dean’s shoulders. He settles at the other table, where Sam’s stacked a dozen books on ancient magic—Sumerian curses, what the hell—and dutifully starts flipping through, eating as he goes. It’s quiet, the record player pulsing out _That’s the Way_ notwithstanding. The burger’s simple, but it’s good. Just what he needs.

He’s deep in a chapter on casting away evil spirits (unlikely to work on Amara, but what if there’s a chance?) when fingers slide over the back of his neck, slipping warm and familiar over his skin. The record’s been quiet for a while, he realizes. How long has it been? A bottle of El Sol lands next to his book and he curls a hand reflexively around it, cold glass a shock on his palm.

“How are you doing?” Sam says, and he’s—he’s asking about the curses, of course, but one thumb is stroking up and down a tendon in Dean’s neck, and then—and then Sam scratches his fingers up through the short hair at the back of Dean’s skull, and it sends a shiver down his spine, it feels good, but—but—

He shoves upright, the chair screeching backward along the hardwood beneath him. “God, stop it, already!” he says, and Sam takes a quick step back, eyes wide.

“What?” Sam says, hands out low at his sides. “What’s the matter?”

“Jesus, Sam, I’m not your goddamn girlfriend—“ Dean starts, but— _fuck_ , that’s not what he meant to say, not at all. He physically clenches his teeth together, fixes his eyes on the table, but, well. Too late.

There’s a pause. “ _What?_ ” A hand reaches out for Dean’s shoulder, looking to turn him back around, but he slaps it away on instinct. He flinches, even as Sam does, and looks up anyway to find Sam taking another solid step back, nothing but confusion in his frown, his half-open mouth.

“What the hell, Dean,” Sam says, and it’s not a question.

He’s right there, still within arm’s reach, and that expectant face, that _what’s the matter with you_ tone that Dean’s been hearing since Sammy was fifteen and started getting pissed off at everything Dean said—it brings the irritation surging right back, and Dean’s stomach is tight and his hands clench into fists at his sides and he opens his mouth, says, “I’m not a damn girl, okay, you don’t have to keep treating me like—“

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sam says, talking right over the top of him. “I’m not—“

“Come on, with the—with the coddling, and the—we’re supposed to be working, Sam, you don't have to—“

“We _are_ ,” Sam interrupts, hand cutting through the air like he’s trying to stop Dean’s voice. He sounds desperate, exasperated. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

Something in his stomach goes sour and tight, and his mouth curls up, mocking. “Oh, just most things, Sammy, you know that better than anyone,” he says, and it’s a weird double gut-punch of satisfaction and disgust when Sam’s face shutters, when he leans back away from Dean like he’s something poisonous. Fair enough: he is, and he knows it, and he doesn’t know why Sam’s still here, why he went for it in the first place. “I just want you to stop faking. No one’s buying it.”

Sam shoves a hand through his hair, agitated. "You think I'm faking." His eyes are hard, now, he’s finally getting pissed back, and—Dean breath catches, because damn if Sammy doesn’t look fantastic like this. “What about you?” Sam says, coming closer. “You think you’re hiding how freaked you are? How much Amara scares you? ‘Cause no one’s buying that, either, believe me—“

But that’s cut off, because Dean shoves him—Sam has to take a staggering step back, and Dean’s left panting, there, ready for a fight. Too ready, and he clenches his hands tighter, his nails cutting into his palms, when Sam just stares at him, shoulders squared, expression somewhere between furious and shocked. Dean wants to—he wants to cut deeper, wants to pull this apart, make it so Sam never wants him again—and he turns on his heel, he shoves the chair out of his way and he leaves the library, marches down the hallway under the bright white lights until he reaches the safety of his room and can shut himself into the dark emptiness of it, because here is where Sam never comes, where Sam never touches him, where he doesn’t get stripped down to nothing, where he’s alone, and alone means safe. He slams the door behind himself and braces both hands against it. Violence is still shuddering through his bones. He wants to fight something—it’s not the soul-deep rage of the Mark, but something primal nevertheless, something that’s curling into his gut, acrid and terrible, and he breathes deep, puts his forehead against the cool wood of the door. Wants something to come through it, but the only possibility is Sam, and he can’t—no. No.

 

He's flat on his back on his bed, arms folded over his chest. He’s not gritting his teeth anymore, consciously, because dear God his headache’s gotten bad. He’s got his headphones firmly on, and he’s gone through the entirety of _Give ‘Em Enough Rope_ , which wasn’t nearly as relaxing as it should have been. The staggering bassline crashes into that familiar humming silence and he blinks up at the ceiling. Takes a deep breath. He’s not so much tired, anymore, as he is…

He sits up, shoves the headphones off and drags his hands through his hair. The bunker’s quiet, so far as he can tell. Okay. No matter what, life has to go on, and so he hauls himself up to his feet, shrugs his shoulders as though that’s going to help ease any tension out. He washes his face in his little sink. Braces himself against the porcelain for a solid minute, breathing uneven, before he grabs the aspirin on the desk behind him, swallows down four with a gulp of icy water. They’ve just gotten home from a hunt, which means there are things Dean should be doing. He absolutely does not want to do them, but then—when has that ever been an excuse?

His two bags are sitting on the armchair, where Sam dropped them when he was unloading their gear. He grabs the bag with the guns first, settles on the bed with his files and oil. It’d be more comfortable in the library, or the kitchen, but—here will work. He leaves the music off, this time. Lets the familiar noise of disassembling his Colt fill the room, the solid clank of metal-on-metal as he pulls the Winchester apart, as he oils and smooths, as he makes sure at least one thing in his stupid life works. Inventory: need to make another few boxes of salt shells; need to refill the salt canisters; consider making more witch-killing bullets, just to be safe—but Sam makes those, doesn’t he. Dean breathes in slowly through his nose, and repacks the weapon bag. He’ll probably have to check Sam’s, too. Not now.

Laundry, next, and he pulls out his hopelessly crumpled Fed suit with a grimace. They should really buy one of those garment bags; he’s tired of always having to iron the damn things. They weren’t gone long enough that he’ll need to do a load right away, at least, and so he sets about replacing the unworn, only-slightly-wrinkled things in his dresser: slacks in the bottom drawer, clean shirts in the middle. When he pulls open the top drawer to replace his boxer briefs, for a second he doesn’t understand what he’s looking at. His underwear is still there, folded into quarters as he prefers, in neat piles with his undershirts and paired socks. Arrayed over the top, though—

It’s… a glimpse into another life. He grips the old wood header of the drawer. On top of his well-washed men’s clothes, placed neat and carefully as though he’d done it himself: six pairs of plain black cotton panties, cut high in the leg, but also—also something in palest pink, and a sky blue satin, and a dark bloody red lace with deceptively full coverage, and right on top, pride of place, a pair of boyshorts in green silk, the color of a new leaf, nearly sheer. He picks up that pair and finds himself on his ass on his bed, clutching them carefully between suddenly-clumsy hands. They’re so delicate. The fabric’s unbelievably soft. Real silk, not the nearly-cheap slick feel of satin. A thin, lighter green ribbon darts around the waistband, a little bow at the back where it dips slightly, and he can imagine that, like an invitation, a signpost saying _here, please, touch me here_. He lays them out, carefully, on his knees, and—of course, they’re the right size. Of course they are.

Sam must have—oh. The post office. He sees it now, obviously. When Dean was in the kitchen, banging around in his ill temper, Sammy did his part and unloaded the clothes and the guns, and snuck his own special package from the post office down here, fulfilling the promise he’d made, the one Dean only half-remembers. _I can work with that_. Dean slides a callused thumb over the dainty silk, something behind his eyes hot and tense, and then he stands back up, lays the panties carefully on top of his dresser.

He isn’t seen on his way to the shower room. He turns the water up, hot, and stands under the blast of pressure, lets it carve softness into his skin. When he feels clean enough he moves over to the sink, stands naked in the steam and cleans his jaw with the straight razor, shaves close enough that his skin’s almost unfamiliar. In the mirror, he’s alternately flushed and too-pale, the freckles standing out harshly. His pupils are huge and he turns away, buries his face in a towel and breathes in tight and almost-panicked, but—no, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.

He glides back to his room in a daze, dries himself haphazardly and leaves the towel in a terrycloth puddle on the floor. The silence pounds in his temples. He’s half-hard, already, and he clutches the panties to his chest for a second, breathes deep, before he slips them on, silk gliding over his thighs a tight fit before he settles them into place. He has to tuck himself in under the waistband; his dick’s a thick bulge, curved to the left and completely conspicuous under the thin fabric. The green’s a shock, somehow. It’s vivid against the pale skin on his hips, the near-white of the tops of his thighs. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have a full-length mirror in here—he wants to see, with a sudden sharp intensity, but the hot tight feeling in his belly wars against it, and he obeys that, he goes with that, because he shouldn’t like—it just makes sense. Under its direction he does what he always does: he finds the softest pair of pajama pants he has, slips them carefully on, finds a thin grey undershirt to cover his chest. Like this he’s almost normal. If anyone wants to look closer, they can, but like this it’s—he’s just, he’s ready, for whatever might be wanted.

 

It's almost eight o’clock when the door to the bunker creaks open. Dean’s sitting in the library, dutifully sifting through the fifth book in his stack, working like he should be. No music, no distractions. There’s a glass of whiskey at his left hand but it’s still full, just one swallow gone. Just enough to sting his mouth. He keeps his eyes on the Yajurveda, on descriptions of fire-rituals and sacrifice, and every part of him is focused on the slow thump of boots down the stairs, the scuff and pause in the archway to the war room. The lights in the library are on full, of course, like they always are, but he’s reading under the spotlight of the little lamp on the table—his empty hands in a pool of light, every part of him open to Sam’s eyes, for Sam to see how ready he is.

The footsteps come closer, and he’s already breathing too fast, but he can’t seem to slow it down. “Dean,” he hears, and the world disjoints as his chair gets dragged around in a screeching jerk of wood-on-wood, and all of a sudden he’s blinking up at—Sam, Sammy tall and flushed and hard-jawed, his mouth a firm line, looming over where Dean’s huddled.

“I haven’t found anything, yet,” Dean says. His hands curl tight around the arms of the chair. “Nothing in there about—“

Sam waves a hand, cuts him off. “I don’t care about that right now. I’m not gonna do this.”

A pit opens in Dean’s head. “What?”

“This stupid crap we always do, where we don’t talk about…”

Sam trails off. Dean blinks up at him, and Sam’s eyes trail over his face, skip down over his heaving chest, and lower. They narrow, and Dean finds himself staring at that pinched-tight expression, the way it smooths out as Sam figures out whatever he’s figuring out, the way his cheeks flush a little darker, his pupils spreading and obscuring that riot of confusing color.

“Dean,” Sam says again, and now his voice is pitch-dark. “Come here.”

Dean pushes off of the thin wooden arms of the chair, stands up right in Sam’s space. His eyes are closed. When did that happen? Hands curl around his elbows, cold because Sam’s been out in the February weather.

“Did you—“ There’s a sharp intake of breath, a slow exhale that rushes against his cheek. “Did you find something, in your room? Did you find what I left for you?”

Something steals Dean’s voice. Like always. Heat rushes into his face, into his belly, and he knows what Sam wants from him but he can’t quite— “Show me,” Sam says, quiet, and his hands haven’t released Dean’s arms but that’s okay. Dean knows what to do, like this, he can just let his body do what it’s told, and so he trails his thumbs down to the waistband of his pajama pants, he hooks them carefully in and pushes, just so, just enough that Sam can see, so he'll take over—

“Fuck,” Sam says, in a gust against Dean’s cheekbone, and then he drags Dean forward, hauls him up into Sam’s body, pushes him a few confusing steps until Dean’s ass is planted on the solid wood of the table. Hands run restlessly up his sides, thumbs dragging along his ribs and the softness of his belly, and he chokes on a breath when they drag right back down and shove into the pajamas, slip under his ass and grab it in two handfuls, fingers digging into the silk.

“Green, just like you said, remember?” Sam says, against his ear. His voice is controlled, tight. Dean tucks his head down against Sam’s chest, sucks in a deep breath. “It’s what you asked for, so I got it for you. Remember?”

Dean nods, eyes squeezed shut. With his face practically buried in Sam’s jacket, nose brushing soft flannel, the world’s nice and dark and empty. Just Sam’s hands on him and his warmth and his voice, telling Dean what he wants. Easy.

The hands squeeze his ass tighter, for a second—bruising tight, and Dean swallows against a groan—but then they slide out of his pants, track heavily down his thighs and hook under his knees, urging his legs up around Sam’s waist. He goes with it, of course. Finds his hands clutched in the lapels of Sam’s jacket, curled up around and into Sammy like—and Sam pushes into the open space between his legs, hot and hard and wanting, and Dean shudders, wants to crawl in closer but there’s nowhere else to go, not unless he can figure out a way to submerge himself, to subsume into Sam and forget about his own flesh.

“That’s good,” Sam says, into his hair. His hips flex into Dean’s and Dean gasps, rock hard in his panties. He wishes Sam would just strip him down and use him, but apparently they’re going slow today. “God, yeah—like that, Dean. You’re…” A pause. One hand hauls Dean’s thigh up a little higher, balancing him on his tailbone on the edge of the table; the other slides up the curve of Dean’s spine under his t-shirt, clenches at the back of his neck and keeps his head down, so his breath comes hard and fast against Sam’s chest. “You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”

For a second, Dean doesn’t understand—and then, _what_ , he does, and he finds himself staring into dark nothing, face pressed up against the shadow of Sam’s t-shirt, forehead against Sam’s thudding heart.

“Yeah,” Sam says, flexing against him again with a surge of strength, and his dick’s right up hard against Dean’s, even through layers of briefs, jeans, cotton, silk. It's so good. “You want to be my girl, don’t you? Like to be pretty, like this, gorgeous in your little panties. That’s how you want to be with me, right?”

It’s a hard twist in his belly. He manages to unfist one hand from Sam’s jacket, worms under Sam’s arm to cling tight to his shoulder. His mouth’s open, panting.

“Yeah, you do, don’t you.” Sam’s voice is low, vibrating in his chest. His hands are iron on Dean’s skin, fingers digging in tight in the thick muscle on Dean’s thigh, at the nape of his neck. “Want me to put—put my fingers in that pussy, fuck you like you’re my sweet girl. Maybe you want me to get you open and—and wet, and plug you full, make you beg for it until I stuff you full at both ends.”

Jesus, what—Dean’s fingers are clawed into Sam’s jacket, aching, but he can’t seem to let go. His hips jerk up into Sam's but he doesn't have any leverage, curled up into Sam's body as he is. _Jesus Christ_ , the shit that Sam’s saying—and he can see it, he can see Sam looming over him, sliding up over his chest with that heavy dick and feeding it into Dean’s open mouth, even as he’s spread wide on—on something, a dildo or a plug or something, something as big and as close to Sammy’s real dick as they can get it, keeping him ready to be fucked, to be used up and torn up and pumped full.

Sam’s pulsing against him, now, rocking his dick into Dean’s crotch in a steady, harsh rhythm, and he’s still talking, his lips moving against the top of Dean’s ear in an unsteady whisper, and Dean squeezes his eyes closed against what Sammy’s saying— “I could tie you up, couldn’t I, because you wouldn’t stop me—could tie you up and keep you ready for me, on your back in your little panties, because you’d be mine, my little pussy to fuck into whenever I wanted, right?—and if I wanted you’d just wait, you’d lay there and you’d wait for me and if, if I wanted, you’d let me hurt you, wouldn’t you, you’d let me bruise you up and you wouldn’t even say a thing—“

 _and if Sammy wanted he could—he’d keep it inside, for Sam, he’d get plugged and he’d bare himself down to green silk and ribbon, he’d stay down in the bright lights of the bunker and be nothing, because for Sam he could, he could cook and clean and be a sweet pretty thing, as long as Sam wanted, if Sam wanted he could pretend, he could learn to be an absence of himself_ and Sam is pushing hard, he’s hauling Dean’s hips into his own with both hands now, grinding hard heat right where Dean needs him, he’s setting his teeth in the curve of Dean’s shoulder and he’s biting down and slicking his tongue over the warm hurt of it and Dean’s thighs are tight around Sam’s waist and he’s making a high humiliating noise in the back of his throat and he wraps his arms around Sam’s broad chest and humps up and comes, pulses bright and buries his face in Sam’s shoulder and shakes, shudders with it, shivers himself empty without a single thought in his head.

“Oh, God,” he hears, from a distance. He’s lax, useless. A bar of iron catches the middle of his back and he sags against it, legs dropping until one thigh’s caught up, a hard grip slowly gentling and sliding up to his hip. Something wet, and hot—oh, a tongue against the hollow of his throat, a groan vibrating against his skin, and when lips catch his he parts them, easy, succumbs.

Slowly, his brain re-engages. Sam’s kissing him, wide and open, and sluggishly he manages to join in, flicks his tongue against Sam’s and drags up a nerveless hand to hook into Sam’s shirt, to keep him close. There’s a little, hurt moan, let out directly against his tongue, and the kiss slows, slackens, until his mouth's left wet and empty, Sam’s forehead pressed against his and their breath mingling between them. His neck hurts. After a few seconds, Sam pulls him back upright, settles his weight back on the table so he’s not suspended between Sam’s arms. A hand covers his, where it’s still hooked into Sam’s flannel, and his eyes drag open to find Sam staring down at him, eyes hooded and face flushed with exertion.

He licks his lips, and Sam’s eyes drop, but then something in Sam’s expression shutters and he moves back a few inches. The sudden rush of air between their bodies is a cool shock. There’s sweat gleaming at Sam’s temples, in the dip of shadow where his shirt’s unbuttoned, and Dean wants that heat on him, wants Sam to bear him back down in the table and—and do what he wants, whatever that happens to be, but Sam… isn’t moving, he’s just staring at Dean, his eyes getting wide, and Dean realizes he’s been staring right at Sam without saying a word for—how long, now? Too long, by Sam’s growing frown. Dean doesn’t have anything to say.

“Really?” Sam says.

That’s—that’s actually upset, and Dean wakes up a little more. He breaks the staring contest, drops his head down, and finds Sam still sporting a thick bulge under his zipper. He didn’t finish. Dean feels himself flushing darker.

“What do you want?” he manages, reaching out toward Sam's belt, and it’s a shock when Sam takes a sharp step back, disengages entirely. He sways a little, has to put the hand down on the table.

Sam runs a hand through his hair and then just leaves it on the back of his head while he stares at Dean. “I want _you_ ,” Sam says, all dismay, and Dean doesn’t—he doesn’t know what that means. “All that—all that shit I was saying, that wasn’t—I thought you wouldn't—"

He drops his hands, but doesn't seem to know what to do with them and folds his arms over his chest. Frozen, Dean sits on the table. “What we’ve got, it’s good,” Sam says, after a few seconds. “But this thing, where you—I don’t know, you just went _away._ I can deal with it, most of the time it's fine, it's hot even, but not when you…”

“What?” Dean says. His voice isn’t as strong as he wants it to be. The world's off its axle, tilted somehow.

Sam shakes his head, looks up at the ceiling for a few seconds. “I don’t want that crap,” he says, finally. He meets Dean’s eyes again and his jaw’s tense, his mouth hard with—god, _disappointment_. Dean doesn't understand. “And I don’t want some, some… doll, that just lays there like a slave. God, Dean, you’re just—“

His gut turns over, queasy. “I’m what?”

“You’re my brother,” Sam says, bluntly. “That’s what. And I know you, and I know what you’re like, and I don’t want you like that.”

Why is he—Dean swallows, tries to get his bearings. Like what? He did what Sam wanted. He wanted to wait, and so Dean waited, because Sam never does anything until Dean is like this, and so Dean made himself like this and now, Sam's... He can't meet Sam's eyes, and finds himself looking down, past the thin mouth and tense arms to where Sam's thick in his jeans, where there's still proof that, that maybe—

Another brief headshake, and Sam backs away, to the war room steps. “No,” he says, soft, punishing. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Dean.”

He turns on his heel, and is gone.

 

At some point, Dean gets down off the table. The wood's left an ache in his hips. He walks on his cold bare feet out of the library, down the curving hallways. The bunker's silent. He goes into his own bedroom. Strips off his shirt and the sweatpants, with their incriminating wet spot. Peels the panties down, the nasty mess he made half-dry and sticking to his skin, making the silk completely sheer and sticky. He stands naked at his sink, plugs it and fills the basin with icy water. Washes the panties between careful, careful hands, rubs the silk until it slicks smoothly under his fingers, the ruin of his spend dissolved away. When he’s done he spreads them out on a towel on the armchair, reshaped and laid flat. If he’s lucky, they won’t be destroyed. He goes back to the sink and wets a cloth, scrubs at his own skin with the cold water until he’s reddened and tender, and then throws it with sudden violence to the floor, puts his cold wet hands over his face and sits on his bed and hunches over. He’s freezing. He doesn’t know what to do.

 

Every once in a great while, Dean dreams about that time when Sam didn’t have a soul. Who knew, back then, that someone could be walking around without their soul? That someone could be the spitting image of someone precious, with all their memories and knowledge, that someone could hold the shape of what was vital like a bookmark in the world—but be lacking the most important thing? Six months, nearly, at the side of that weird brother-shell, that automaton who smiled like Sammy, who smelled like Sammy, who looked at him sometimes in that dark possessive way like Sam used to, but it was a lie, wasn’t it. Veritas proved that. Dean dreams, sometimes, about that day, when he’d left the Sam-thing a bruised and bloodied mess with Cas, when he’d fled from the fearsome shape of it, when he’d gone to that bar in north Chicago and been half in the bag by the time he got there, so that it wasn’t really him, right, it was drunk-Dean, and drunk-Dean pulled a tall, dark stranger into the alleyway, he kissed that stranger with a whiskey-buzzing numb mouth, he pressed his face into the brick and let his jeans get hauled down and got fucked, hard, got fucked and fucked and fucked until he forgot everything else, the stranger groaning praise and filth into the back of his neck. When he dreams about it, what he remembers is the brick, and the weird whirling feeling of being drunk, and the soreness after. He doesn’t remember if he came, or if he actually wanted it, and in a way that wasn’t what was important. He’d wanted to divorce himself from the memories; he’d wanted an excision, a way to separate the Dean who had to hunt with the repulsive Sam-clone from the Dean who still needed—who still wanted—Sam. Sammy. It didn’t work, of course. It couldn’t and never would, because Dean—there isn’t anything to him, without Sam. There are no jokes, there’s no music and no diner food and no dim motels and no skin touching skin, no quiet words in the soft dark space between two bodies, no reason to keep this stupid hunk of rock spinning around the sun. Not without Sam.

 

Dean wakes up late, way too late, on Tuesday afternoon. When he manages to dress himself, when he shuffles out to the library, it turns out he didn’t miss anything—Sam’s working, leaning over the table he’s claimed as his, laptop and tablet and texts spread around him. Dean swallows, but he hasn’t really made much noise, and Sam doesn’t look up. He goes the long way around to go to the kitchen, instead, and finds the dishes from yesterday washed, stacked neatly in the drainer, and the coffee pot full, waiting for him. He bites the inside of his cheek. Wishes, suddenly and intensely, for something simple, an easy hunt, something he can just kill without thinking. He pours a cup of coffee instead. It’s not great, because Sam made it, but it’s going to have to do.

He comes back through the war room, walks up the steps into the library in Sam’s full view. “Any progress?” he says. His voice is a low scrape, but it’s even enough.

Sam shrugs, keeps his eyes on the scroll he’s got pinned between his laptop and a spellbook. “Not yet.”

Dean nods, not that Sam would see it. He could say something, now—but what could he say, without making it even more awkward than it already is. He settles at his own table, instead. The Yajurveda’s still open, his notepad empty of revelations next to it. Work. It’s all he can do, at this point.

They trudge through book after book, scrolls that Sam keeps digging up from the archives. Everything’s covered in a fine, silky layer of dust. At some point Sam disappears and comes back with take-out tacos, one bag of which he leaves silently at Dean’s side. When Dean checks his watch he finds it’s almost eight p.m. Sam takes his own bag and heads down into the halls, and Dean watches his back until it disappears. They haven’t talked.

On Wednesday Dean wakes at dawn to footsteps in the hallway. After a few moments, there’s the far-off creak of the bunker’s front door. Sam’s running.

Alone, he replaces the serpentine belt in the Impala, flushes and replaces her fluids and tightens everything he can reach. The weird little office in the garage has a full kit for wax and detail and he uses every item, because—like everything else in this place—they were somehow spelled to stasis, perfect even after all this time. It’s after noon when he’s done, when he’s got her perfect again, gleaming at every curve. “There you go, baby,” he murmurs, wiping down her shining hood. “Sorry it’s been a little while.” He wants to take her out, drive wild and fast down empty backroads and feel her purr under him, wants to pull into a seedy bar and drag admiring eyes to her, wants to hustle someone and win, but—they don’t do that anymore. Haven’t had to for years.

“It’s all different now, isn’t it,” he says, hand on the gleaming roof. It’s quiet. What a thing it would be if she could respond, given all the memories she’d surely retain in her chassis, in leather and steel. Even if she can only ever be a silent companion, at least she’s better than all the ridiculous cars the Letters collected. She stands out here like a violent predator, muscled and well-used. The most precious thing vaulted in the bunker, save one.

 

He dreams himself unarmed, hunting through midnight woods, bleeding and bruised. In a grey fog he finds himself with his back to a great tree, panting in sudden unearned fear. He needs—he has to get out, he needs to find—find—but it’s silent here, and still, and the bark is for some reason no longer scraping up his back and he stands paralyzed in the dim and then Amara is standing there, ten feet away, watching him. Of course. For once, she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t plant any of her poisonous thoughts directly into his head as she tends to do. He stands, and breathes, and she watches him with a frown, but with sympathy, too. She holds out a hand. Like this, her power doesn’t seep into him and the choking bliss doesn’t seize his throat—and there is nevertheless a piece of him, a tamped-down and revolting piece, that wants to go with her. To give in, to surrender. He won’t. Not unless she makes him. But it’s still there, and he hates it, but the thing is—the thing is that that piece has always been there. There’s always been this soft part of him, at the core, that just wants to sink down and let stronger hands take over, that has been battered and bent and melted down so that he could be his father’s aimed weapon, Hell’s ruined righteous man, an angel’s dupe. Amara watches him, the fog seeping darkly up around her. He’s tired and that little piece wants to kneel, to give in, but—no. No. Despite everything, he is still Dean Winchester, and Dean Winchester has one job, one thing that’s more important than everything else. One thing that supersedes even the Darkness’s hold. Amara starts moving closer, bringing with her that treacherous grey, and he squeezes his eyes shut, and then—

Dean’s eyes slam open. It’s cold in his room, and it’s dark, but he’s alone. He’s alone. He slings one arm over his eyes and focuses on breathing, slow and even and deep. He’s tired of this.

He sits up in bed, scrubs his hands over his face. His phone tells him that it’s seven a.m. and that it snowed last night in Smith County. Four inches, which isn’t exactly unusual for February but which feels like a punishment nevertheless. He lets himself wallow for a few seconds, pressing the thin metal edge of the phone into his forehead, before he heaves himself to his feet.

Two pairs of socks, his thick jeans, shirt, flannel, jacket. For a fleeting second he wishes he’d kept Dad’s leather coat, for how big it was, half-covering his hands and falling down past his ass. He clomps down the too-bright hallway to the kitchen, where there’s a fresh pot of coffee—Sam’s work, again, and he gulps a mug of it too fast, swallowing down the bitter taste of it as quickly as possible. He leaves the kitchen via the war room and out of the corner of his eye he sees a flash of dark hair, golden lamplight. He doesn’t look over, doesn’t say a thing. In the garage he finds the snow shovels, along with the sets of good leather gloves, and he takes a deep breath of warm air before he trudges past the Impala, out up the long underground driveway to the hidden entrance which is, as he suspected, clogged thick with snow. The slope where the natural ground falls away into concrete is packed deep—seven or eight inches here, maybe. He shrugs his shoulders under his jacket, cracks his neck, and sets to work.

It’s incredibly quiet out here. They’re far enough outside of Lebanon that hardly anyone passes their way, and Lebanon’s a tiny town as it is. He focuses on the crunch of his shovel in the snow. The sun’s only a handspan above the horizon, not high enough to reach him down here, but it’s sparking bright off the snow caught in the branches of the maples nearby. The air’s cold and sharp in his chest, but the repetitive work is making him a little warmer, at least.

He’s about halfway through the driveway when there’s another sound, another crunch of boots through the snow. He glances up to find Sam with his own shovel, his own set of gloves. Sam’s mouth is set in a hard line and he doesn’t look Dean’s way. Well, fine. Dean moves further up the drive, sets back to work without a word.

The sun’s higher, light dipping down into the recessed drive, when they finally finish clearing their respective sides. Dean swipes a wrist over his sweaty forehead, catches Sam doing the same in his periphery. The drive’s clear enough that they’ll be able to get the Impala out. Hopefully the sun will melt some of the stuff on the dirt path that goes out to the main road, or he’ll need to get a truck and figure out that damn plow attachment they brought back from Bobby’s. He sighs. One last thing to do, still.

The front door is on the same side of the building as the driveway’s little hidden alcove, at least. Predictably, the entrance is smothered with snow, the stairs completely gone. He takes a tentative step and sinks down to his calf immediately, cold leaching instantly through his jeans.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he mutters, and behind him there’s a little snort. He shakes his head. “Yeah, laugh it up,” he says, and it’s quieter than he wanted it to be, but it’s—it’s something.

The snow’s pretty dry, at least. He gives up and wades right in, starts shoveling it over the railing as best he can. Sam works on the steps, like a bitch. Between the two of them, they clean out enough that they’ll be able to open the door, though Dean’s left wondering what on earth the Letters were thinking, putting their main entrance below ground level in north Kansas. By the time they’re done he’s warm through, even if his shoulders and arms and, god, even his sides are going to be sore. He blows out a long breath and leans his shovel up against the railing before he drops down to sit on the top step. He needs more coffee.

He has his eyes closed, sort of enjoying the way the icy air’s prickling against his exertion-warm skin. There’s a clank of metal-on-metal, and a crunch of snow, and then—oh. Sam’s sitting beside him, suddenly, on the step.

“I owe you an apology,” Sam says.

It’s so not what Dean was expecting that he glances over. Sam's leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, face flushed, his gloved hands folded up like he’s praying. His eyes are fixed on the concrete between his boots.

“I was, uh. I was freaked, I guess. And I took it out on you, and I did some stuff, and said some stuff, that I shouldn’t have, because I thought you’d…” He pauses, then shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. But I shouldn’t have handled it like I did. I screwed up.” He huffs, a bitter, disappointed little sound that’s too familiar. “Again.”

Dean has to look away from the tense line of his profile and finds himself staring at the stubborn little fir above the entrance, just big enough to hide them if someone looks down from the main road. “You don’t need to apologize,” he manages, eventually.

Sam’s head drops lower, shakes. “Yeah, I do.” There’s not a lot to say to that. Dean's stomach twists. After a second, Sam's shoulders heave in a huge breath. “We need to talk, Dean, about—“

“I’ve been having these dreams,” Dean says, cutting him off.

Sam sits up straighter. Dean keeps his eyes on the little fir tree, on the way the sun’s finally strong enough to spark blindingly off the snow frosting its needles. “Dreams,” Sam says.

“Not visions or anything,” he says. His hands are steady. He swallows. “They’re, uh. Amara. Mostly.”

Sam’s fully turned toward him now, and if Dean knows his little brother he’ll have that frown wrinkling his forehead, his eyes narrowed in thought. “You… you told me about that, though.”

Tucked under Sam’s arm in the bright warmth of his bed, mumbling what he’d been keeping secret into the safe space between them. How she'd spoken to him, when she first rose. How he’d tried to kill her, twice, and couldn’t. How she wanted him, and so he couldn’t hurt her.

“It’s dark, usually. In the dreams. Makes sense, I guess, considering what she is.” He realizes he’s scrubbing his hands up and down his thighs and forces himself to stop, tucks them between his knees. “She talks to me, kind of. Same stuff, like I told you—‘come with me,’ and ‘I know you want me,’ all that crap.”

He pauses, but Sam doesn’t say anything. Just sits there, quiet and watchful. Dean closes his eyes.

“I can’t ever move, really. But not like she’s freezing me, or like when a demon pins you down. More like I just… can’t, like my body doesn’t work anymore. And, uh, I can’t talk. And she’s always—just, you know, staring at me, if she’s not inside my head already. Sometimes both. She wants me to give up, become a part of her. Says I could stop thinking.” He folds his arms over his chest. “Not like I’m doing much of that anyway.”

There’s a longer pause. Finally, Sam shifts beside him. “You’re sure these are just dreams? Not her talking to you, in your sleep?”

“There’s a difference. You know that better than anybody.” He opens his eyes, finally, glances at Sam long enough to catch his—yes, that's his puzzle-solving face. He snorts and looks away, traces the old lines and arches of the bunker’s door.

When Sam talks again, it’s slow, like he’s working something out. “When she tells you what she wants, what do you say?”

“Can’t talk, Sammy,” Dean repeats. He shivers, a little. Fuck, it’s cold out here. “Not like she’d need me to say yes, anyway. She can just take what she wants. Doesn’t matter whether I want her back or not.”

Sam grabs his elbow, a harsh grip, and Dean’s surprised into looking right at him. His eyes are huge, distressed. He seems to remember himself and removes his hand, folds it into a fist as he says, “Whether you do?” Careful, even tone, like Dean doesn’t know that Sam’s freaked out.

Dean stands up, and Sam rises right along with him, but it’s not like Dean’s going anywhere. He walks down the few steps into the entranceway, paces a little square around the concrete. Sam stands still, watching him, backlit by the morning.

“Being around her, dream or not, it’s—I don’t know. It’s like everything that makes me ‘me’ just goes away. I don’t belong to myself anymore; I belong to her.” He stops his pacing, rubs a hand over the back of his neck. He doesn’t want to look at Sam. “I hate it. I can’t stand that she can do that to me.”

“You don’t have control,” Sam says. There’s a weird note in his voice.

“Yeah,” Dean starts, but—that’s not it, not exactly. He shivers again, wonders if there’s any way he can get across what he wants Sam to hear, but before he can try there’s a “Crap!” from Sam.

“Dude, what the hell—look at your pants,” Sam says, and Dean looks down and—oh, well, right. His jeans are damp to the knee. No wonder he’s so cold.

“I’m an idiot, I—come on, let’s get inside,” and it’s a weird role-reversal with Sam chivvying him out of the cold, the bunker’s heat a shock against his exposed skin. He peels off his gloves and jacket as Sam prods him down the stairs, drops them on the map table and finds himself shivering, hard and constantly. Sam disappears into the kitchen and puts a mug of coffee on the table, darts into the library and comes back with the whiskey and drops in a healthy slug. “Drink that,” he orders, and Dean has no objection, though he grimaces again at the bitterness, not improved with sitting on the burner for god knows how long, not really hidden under the bite of the whiskey.

“You have got to learn to make better coffee,” he says, when he’s finished. His stomach’s warm, at least.

“You should wake up earlier so you can make your own,” Sam retorts, but it’s not sharp. He’s watching Dean, again, the map table between them. There’s something careful about the way he’s at a distance, his eyes searching. Dean can’t imagine what he’s thinking. He wants him closer.

“I should take a shower,” Dean says, finally. Another surge of cold seizes him and he shudders. What timing. Sam looks down, folds his hands around the back of one of the swivel chairs. Dean swallows, closes his eyes. “You should, too. It can’t have been more than thirty degrees out there.”

There’s another pause, but—damn it, it’s not like they haven’t done it before, even when they weren’t—“Yeah,” Sam says, finally. Dean nods and turns around immediately, wonders if Sam can see the flush crawling up his neck as he follows Dean down the hallways to the shower room.

He works at his wet laces with chilly fingers, wrestles the boots off with a groan. Sam’s quiet beside him, dropping his clothes untidily onto the laundry table. He seems to be following Dean’s lead, and so it’s left to Dean to make the first move over to the shower heads once he’s finally stripped down, to turn on the water and wait, shivering, for it to heat up. Sam picks the head two spaces down. Not so long ago that they did this exact thing, but this time there’s a lot more knowledge under Dean’s belt.

He wasn’t lying about needing the shower. The water hits the back of his neck like a damn fire hose. It’s almost torturous, the heat zinging his chilly damp skin, but it feels good, too, massaging along his sore shoulders, his tense back. He doesn’t look over at Sam—doesn’t know what he’ll see, if he does—and he doesn’t want to move, wants to just stand there under the water forever, but that isn’t in the cards, unfortunately, and so he soaps up, washes away the sweat of hard labor. When he finally surrenders and turns off the showerhead, he turns to find that Sam’s already done—turned away, half-dressed in jeans and a navy t-shirt, toweling off his wet hair. Dean grabs his own towel off the table, scrubs himself mostly dry as quick as he can before he knots it tight around his waist.

“Dean.”

When he turns, Sam’s giving him one of those long looks again. What is he always looking for, Dean thinks. “I’ve got to get dressed,” he says, eventually. He meets Sam’s eyes, hopes Sam knows what he means, and then walks out of the shower room.

The bunker’s air still feels too-warm, or maybe that’s just him. He makes it to his room and turns the lamps on, checks the clock on the desk—God, it’s not even noon yet. He pulls out a clean pair of jeans, one of his older flannel shirts, the brown one, and then Sam’s standing in the open doorway. He takes a deep breath, and then he puts down the shirt. Sits down on the end of his mattress. He glances at the chair, and after a second Sam sinks down into it. His hands clench and unclench like he’s nervous.

“Am I—“ Sam starts. He closes his eyes for a second, but then opens them up again and fixes Dean with one of those looks. Determined, this time. “Do you actually want to be with me?”

What the _hell_ —“What?” Dean says.

He has no idea what’s on his face, but apparently some of his shock is bleeding through because, after a scary few seconds, something in Sam relaxes a little and he nods, letting out a long breath. “Okay.” He runs a hand through his hair, lets out a shaky little half-laugh. “Wow. Okay, yeah. Good.”

Dean shakes his head, bewilderment seizing his voice. He wishes he were wearing something besides the towel. He folds his arms over his chest, opens his mouth to try to say—he has no idea what, actually, but then Sam sits forward, on the edge of the chair and angled so that his knees are nearly touching Dean’s.

“These last couple of days, I’ve been thinking—don’t say anything,” he says, holding up a hand, but Dean wasn’t about to make a joke. “And I realized, I missed something, something huge, and I thought, I’m an idiot. Couldn’t figure out how I hadn’t seen it before.”

Dean waits, but Sam’s just watching him again—Jesus, it’s like he’s got nothing better to do than just stare, and finally he can’t take it anymore, says, “What?” as he assumes Sam wants.

Sam bites the inside of his lip, twisting his mouth, and then he—he slides out of the chair, onto his knees in front of Dean, right in Dean’s space. Surprised, Dean leans back, fast, but Sam’s hands land on top of his thighs where they’re covered by the towel and he’s pinned in place.

“What do you want?” Sam says.

Dean’s bed is low enough and Sam’s tall enough that they’re basically at eye-level, still. Dean opens his mouth, closes it. This isn’t—this isn’t how this goes. Sam tilts his head. He slides one hand down a little, his thumb slipping in under where the towel parts to brush against the tender skin on the inside of Dean’s knee. Just that, delicate and brief as it is, has a rush of heat curling through Dean’s belly. He takes in a sharp breath.

“Even back then, when I was—“ Sam shakes his head, dismissing the bleak past, but there’s a bitter twist to his expression for a second. “Even then. I waited. Until you gave me some kind of signal. I don’t know if you know the way you look, when you’re like that. It’s unbelievable.”

Dean swallows. He does know. He can feel his face heating up, already, and he closes his eyes.

“It’s just—I can wait. If that’s what you need me to do. But I realized that I never told you something.” There’s another little touch to his knee. “So, here goes: you could be wearing a janitor's coveralls, or be neck-deep in mud or vamp blood, and I’d still want to.”

Dean opens his eyes, confused, and Sam’s mouth curls up on one side. “I mean, I’d rather not do the vamp blood, but—“

“But you never—“ Dean starts, but cuts himself off, pulls back a little.

Sam’s smile disappears. He doesn’t move his hands, but they do go light, so Dean can move if he needs to. “Turns out I’m an idiot. I think I mentioned that.”

Dean scrubs a hand over his face. He’s teetering in the middle of that see-saw again. If Sam’s saying what he thinks he’s saying, then that means—what, so Sam wanted him, even if Dean wasn't—

“Back then,” Dean says, his hand over his eyes. “When we were—when we got our heads back, after Zachariah zapped us. You didn’t say anything, until you—you saw—“

Even now, he can’t say it. Years along and the embarrassment clogs his throat. He remembers that night, even through the haze of time, remembers Sam saving him from the demon and then focusing like a damn laser on Dean’s humiliation, his stupidity that he’d thought he’d kept secret.

“Idiot,” Sam repeats, soft. “Didn’t realize what I was missing.”

Dean’s chest feels like it could collapse. He’s breathing hard, both hands over his face now. His skin’s too hot.

Quietly, Sam says, “Dude, don’t hyperventilate."

He curls forward and his forehead lands on Sam’s shoulder. He does as he’s told and breathes, deep, curls his hands around Sam’s biceps. It takes a minute, but turns out Sam’s willing to deal with it.

One of those big hands settles on the back of his neck, light and warm. “What do you want?” Sam says, again. His voice is low, undemanding, but it shivers right into Dean’s ear. His hands tighten on Sam’s arms, without his permission. “Do you…”

Dean breathes in, out, matching the rise and fall of Sam’s chest. A thumb rubs a smooth line over the buzzed edge of Dean’s hairline, stroking up into the hollow at the base of his skull.

“Okay,” Sam says, but quiet, like it’s to himself. He shifts a little and Dean feels the tickle of hair against his shoulder, his neck. The next words are right against the top of his ear. “Would you get dressed for me?”

A jolt of heat in his gut, just from Sam asking—straight out, no way to misinterpret, not like this. Dean nods, and Sam pushes him gently back. They stand up, together, but Sam just sits back down in the chair, hands curled over the arms. Dean turns around, goes to his dresser. Slides the drawer halfway out, and hesitates.

"Which ones?" he says, staring down at the neatly arrayed splash of color.

There's a pause. "You pick." His voice is low, curt. "They're yours."

He closes his eyes for a second, almost dizzy, but nods again. The knot on the towel is undone with clumsy fingers and it puddles down around his feet. Black, or pink, or blue, or red, or—he pulls out the unruined green silk, rubs a careful thumb along the slick ribbon to check it's still as smooth as it should be. Perfect, even after its ill-use, and he slides the drawer carefully shut.

He doesn't know what Sam expects, if he wants a show or a tease. Dean doesn't know how to do that even if that is what Sam wants. He just stands in front of the dresser, balances on one foot and then the other as he gets his legs in, then draws them carefully up along his thighs. He's still mostly soft, so it's easy to tuck himself in under the waistband. He runs his fingers under the seams, makes sure his balls are held neatly, makes sure the silk settles properly over the swell of his ass.

"God," Sam says, and suddenly he's standing, right behind Dean, his hands closing over Dean's waist. He presses his mouth high on the curve of Dean's shoulder and Dean shudders, puts his hands flat on the dresser top. "Perfect. Knew they would be. They feel good?"

Dean drops his head, nods, and then the world spins as Sam turns him around, pulls him in close. He kisses Dean's temple, closes one hand tight around a silk-covered hip, and then runs one finger along the ribbon, down to where the bow sits, just above the crack of Dean's ass. "My favorite part," Sam says, and then his finger slips under the waistband, rubs hard over Dean's tailbone, and further, and Dean jerks forward even as Sam dips down to kiss him, open-mouthed and demanding.

Being kissed by Sam is distracting, consuming—he kisses with his whole body, his other hand coming up to hold Dean's jaw, his shoulders curving in and his hips forward, knee sliding between Dean's thighs, until Dean's surrounded, covered. It's a shock when he's pulled forward, Sam walking backward towards the door.

"What—" Dean mumbles, and Sam smiles against his mouth, says, "I want to fuck you," and Dean's brain kind of cuts out again right there.

Sam keeps talking, dragging him step by step out the door, into the hallway. "And I think your room is great, really," he says, like Dean's taking in any of it, "but there's no way I'm gonna fuck you on a memory foam mattress. How is it possible," he continues, pushing Dean up against a wall and licking up under his ear, "that you got the worst possible bed to have sex on?"

A thumb pushes his chin up, so that he's staring at the blurry lights of the ceiling, as that fucking mouth moves along the underside of his jaw, and he doesn't know if Sam actually expects an answer but he takes a deep breath anyway, says, "Didn't think I'd ever have sex on it," and for some reason that makes Sam's hand tighten on his throat, but then it loosens and he gets a kiss at the corner of his mouth, on his cheek, and he turns his head into it, blindly, but then the door next to them finally opens and Sam pulls him into the half-lit dim of his own room, and—oh, they're here.

Sam pushes him down to sit on the edge of the mattress. The springs bounce back and he swallows, because—yeah. He shakes his head, blinks, but Sam's already pulling his t-shirt over his head, unbuttoning and kicking off his pants, and suddenly there's just—Sam, hair a mess, reaching out to turn on the bedside lamp so amber light glows over his skin, his dick half-hard and thick between his legs. Dean licks his lips. Sam turns back, catches him looking, and grins, out of nowhere, dimples cutting into his cheeks.

"Yeah?" he says, but it's rhetorical.

He bends for another kiss, sets one knee on the bed and settles strong hands around Dean's waist. Dean finds himself half pushed, half lifted, settled carefully onto his back in the middle of the bed. Sam kneels up above him, upright with his knees on either side of Dean's thighs. He's—huge, lit up. And watching Dean, again. Dean's hands fist into the pillow, but he's not going to hurry Sam along. He can do whatever he likes.

What he likes is apparently spreading his hands out on Dean's skin and taking his time. He rubs his thumbs in firm circles right under Dean's ears, drags them down the tendons in his neck in a little massage. Dean shivers, unexpectedly, and that cuts a dimple into Sam's cheek again, before he brushes a light touch over the tight points of Dean's nipples, drags down his ribs and gentles over his belly, before he settles his hands on Dean's hips, their span enough that his thumbs brush the skin under his navel. Dean swallows, eyes half-open so he can watch Sam watching him.

"God, look how hard you are," Sam says, and he drops one hand to cup the swell of his balls where they're filling the silk, long fingers reaching down to press behind them, dragging slow and purposeful. Dean groans, hips flexing, and Sam's eyes dart up to catch his. "Jesus, Dean," he says, but it's—admiring, somehow, and then he's leaning over, to the bedside table, opening the drawer and grabbing what Dean knows is hidden there, and then he does have to close his eyes, because he's weirdly dizzy again, his gut tight and his dick aching.

The weight over him shifts and Sam's kissing him again, biting at his lower lip, even as he knocks Dean's legs apart with one knee. Dean spreads, as much as he can, reaches out to grasp at warm skin—Sam's shoulder, the muscle there moving as slick fingers land in a gentle press against Dean's inner thigh. He hitches his leg out even wider at the suggestion and Sam breaks away from the kiss, looks down between them, says, "Jesus Christ," breathless, and then the fingers slip down, burrow under silk and find their target immediately. Dean flinches and then groans, squeezes his eyes tighter shut as Sam rubs, back and forth, makes him wet. His hips hitch up, automatically, and then Sam's pushing in, two fingers shoving in all at once, and Dean gulps air, wraps an arm around Sam's neck and lifts into it.

"That's right," Sam says, against his cheekbone, kisses him randomly. His fingers grind in, deep, thumb braced hard just behind Dean's balls to get leverage. "You're so good, Dean, you feel so good—"

He's still talking, but then his fingers curl up, just right, and Dean makes some kind of noise and Sam shuts up, just kisses him through it, breathes open against Dean's mouth as he stretches him wide, as he pushes in a third finger, gets him wet and ready, twisting and deep enough that he's leaking into the silk, his thighs starting to quiver. Sam pulls back from his mouth, and after a second he curses for no reason that Dean can tell. His fingers punch in again, to the knuckles, but then all of a sudden Sam pulls them out, faster than he usually would. He hauls Dean's thigh up around his hip and Dean thinks _oh_ and follows, he tilts his hips up and groans crazily when Sam scrabbles the panties down and out of the way just enough that he can sink in, in one steady shocking push.

"Oh, fuck," Sam says, grinding his forehead against Dean's. Dean's teeth sink into his lip. God, that pressure—Sam shifts his hips and Dean makes some cracked sound, deep his chest. It makes Sam kiss him again, gentle apology, but _God_ it feels good, even if he feels pulled taut, his heart beating too fast, his mind fuzzing out.

"Come here," he hears, somewhere, and there's a hand pulling up his other leg. He hitches his knees up and tightens his thighs over Sam's waist and oh _damn_ it Sam slides deeper, grinds in closer, and he gulps breath but tilts into it, too, because—because—

"I need—" Sam says, and then he's moving, short hard thrusts, slow, but they're making Dean gasp anyway, grinding right up into where he needs it most. Sam groans into his shoulder, shifts his weight a little and then burrows a hand between them, where Dean's about to burst but still covered up with silk. "Yeah," Sam mumbles, "push against me, come on—" and Dean can barely think, tips his head back against the pillow and moves with it, as he's told, as Sam starts to thrust faster, using him a little harder, his palm flat along the length of Dean's dick, and that's—oh, that's starting to feel really good, jolting heat right up inside, winding tighter. Dean rides it, the long good stroke of it. He grasps at the back of Sam's neck, his side, a continuous groan spilling out of him, but he can't help it, not with how Sam's—

Fuck, pulling _out_ , no—"Sammy," he says, eyes flying open, and Sam pitches forward and kisses him, the huge wet length of his dick pressing into his belly, curving hard against his own dick, and he cries out, high, embarrassing, and Sam says, "I can't, I need to—" and then he's knocking Dean's legs wide again, shouldering down between them, and then he yanks the panties down and swallows Dean's dick down to the root.

Dean yelps, heels dragging against the bed. Sam's holding him tight to the mattress, sucking hard and sloppy, demanding. "Sammy," Dean says again, helpless, and Sam groans, reaches out blind to find one of Dean's hands and place it on the back of his own head. Dean's fingers wind into his hair, automatic, and Sam groans again, deep, vibrating against Dean's dick. He tightens his lips, pulls up in a hard draw up the shaft, and Dean stares down the length of his body as Sam lets it fall out of his mouth to slap back against his belly.

"I want you to come," Sam says, breathing hard. Dean's hips jerk against Sam's hand, his fingers tight in Sam's hair, and Sam meets his eyes, face flushed and intent. "Like this. Okay?"

There's no answer to that and Sam doesn't seem to expect one. He shoves under Dean's left leg, pulls it over his shoulder so Dean's spread wide. He nuzzles against the tight package of Dean's balls, through the silk where they're just barely covered, slides his tongue up Dean's shaft and presses hard at the head, holds Dean down when his hips jerk again, and then goes right back to work. Last time Dean had this from Sam was seven years ago, in some dirty abandoned house, fast and furious and almost painful. This is—Sam slots three fingers back inside him, slipping in easy where he's been broken wide, and Dean arches his back, both hands in Sam's hair now, clenched tight and begging. That clever mouth pulls up to the head, so he can tongue over the scar, flick into the slit, and three fingers ram up deep inside, moving slick, and Dean's thighs shake and his toes curl and he comes, just like that, just like Sammy wanted. His hips jerk up, helplessly, but Sam takes it, mouth easing back just a little even as his fingers keep moving, fluttering against his insides. Dean's hands slip nervelessly out of Sam's hair. The long muscles in his thighs are shaking as they fall wide. He's still trying to get his breath back when Sam swallows around him and then surges up his body, arm shoved between them, and kisses him, hard, urgent.

"Fuck, Dean," he says, into Dean's mouth, the wet tip of his dick glancing against Dean's belly. Dean shudders, lands a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Fuck, you're so—you're unbelievable."

His fingers curl into Dean again and Dean's dick jolts against his belly, wet and spent. Dean sucks in some needed air, spreads his knees. "Come on, Sammy," he manages, voice a wreck, and Sam jerks away, stares at him, and then rears back, breaks Dean's grip on his shoulder. His fingers yank out of Dean with a wet noise and Dean flinches, but then Sam's grasping the panties, sliding them down and off, tossing them to the end of the bed.

Dean's stomach flips and he gets an elbow underneath him, tries to lift up, but Sam's already on top of him again. He kisses over Dean's face, his eyebrow, the hinge of his jaw, says, "Dean." Pleading, somehow, and Dean shuts his eyes, wraps his arms around Sam's shoulders, tilts his hips up and Sam slots back inside, jerking a groan out of both of them. Sam starts thrusting immediately, Dean's body opening easily around the big urgent shape of him. Dean can't get hard again, not this fast, but it feels good anyway, echoes shocking through his body. Sam noses against the underside of Dean's jaw, teeth scraping along his throat as he shoves in and in and in, and Dean tilts his head for it, overstimulated, wet spilling down his temples. He slides a hand into Sam's hair, shivery sore pleasure making him shake, and Sam grunts, shoves one of Dean's knees up high and flat to the bed as he slams in, deep, and again, and then he jerks between Dean's legs and he's coming, finally, rhythm stuttering, before it eases smooth and he rocks in more gently, mouth moving along Dean's jaw to his lips, kissing against where his teeth are sunk in, easing them both down.

When Sam finally pulls out Dean flinches, left sore and wide-open. Sam makes a soothing noise, rolls him over and pulls him back in against his chest. Between them one hand slips down, rubs carefully against the wet tender space. He sucks in a sharp breath when two fingers slide in, but that feels good, too, even if it shouldn't. Filling him where he's empty. After a tense moment, he sighs, relaxes boneless against the broad chest behind him, head pillowed on one strong arm. A kiss lands on the back of his neck, over a spot where it hurts. He tilts into it. He's so warm.

 

He wakes up on his stomach, head pillowed on his folded arms. A barely-there touch is skimming down the furrow of his spine, so light it wouldn't have woken him. The touch draws a circle at the small of his back, then drags lower, traces over the cleft of his ass, where he's—he squirms, can't help it, and the little touch becomes a wide warm hand that settles over his bare skin.

"Morning," Sam says, quiet.

Dean squirms again and manages to brush up against a mile of hot skin, his leg settling alongside Sam's. "What time is it?" he croaks.

"About, uh—one in the afternoon." Dean pulls his head up out of his arms just enough to squint at Sam's desk clock, but it's too far away. "Still Thursday and everything, I promise."

He drops his head back down. Sam's thumb is stroking over the top of his asscheek. It feels good, but—

"Stay there, okay?" Sam says, and his weight leaves the bed. Dean pushes his face into crook of his elbow, listens to the pad of bare feet on the concrete floor, the rush of water—and then the mattress dips again, with a little thunk of glass on wood, before a big hand lands in the middle of his spine. "Water on the nightstand, if you want it."

He shrugs and there's a soft sigh. In the pause, Sam's hand tracks down, petting the skin at the top of his hips, the small of his back—right around where a waistband should be. He shifts against the mattress and his thighs slip together where the lube hasn't been cleaned up, where he's probably leaking.

"I rinsed out your panties," Sam says, finally.

Dean jerks. Jesus.

"I want you to hear something." The hand slides up his back, a long hard stroke to the back of his neck. "When you're dressed like that, it's—pretty much the hottest thing I've ever seen. Even hotter than Phoebe Cates in _Fast Times_." Dean snorts. "Yeah, take it as a compliment." Sam squeezes his neck gently, then shakes him a little. "But, listen. I don't need them. And if they're—I don't know, a crutch, or a barrier, or whatever, then I don't want them, either."

Doesn't want—does that mean—

"Hey, you think you could look at me?" It's quiet, undemanding. Dean rolls over onto his side to find Sam up on one elbow, head propped on his hand. He looks a little tired, but basically content. Waiting. Dean doesn't know what to say.

Sam's free hand snakes out and loosely grasps Dean's wrist. "If it's something you want—you, specifically, not something you think you need to do, for—whatever reason. If you want it, then... awesome. I'm on board." His grip tightens, then, and Dean's breath stutters. "I'm not like her. I want you, not some weird helpless version of you."

Dean breaks Sam's grip and sits up. His chest feels tight. "Helpless, huh."

Sam's mouth twists. "No, you're not," he says, and shifts around, puts his back against the headboard so they're staring at each other over a few feet of bed. "That's my point, man. You're not. But you were getting tangled up in that weird headspace, where you would've let me..." He shakes his head, looks away with this wounded flash of something terrible on his face, and Dean understands, all at once.

In the silence, he takes a moment to imagine how this could be. Together, him and Sam, on the same page after all this time. Hunting together, saving people together, but also coming home, to the bunker, together. Finally to go to sleep in the same bed, Sam wrapped too-hot and sweaty against his back, and to imagine no other endgame but this one.

He clears his throat. Sam looks back at him, meets his eyes. Dean takes a deep breath. "You know, we keep saying it, but I feel like it hasn't really took."

Sam frowns. "What hasn't?" he says, thrown off.

"I'm with you," Dean says. Sam blinks at him, and then his frown clears up, his eyes going soft. Dean shrugs, looks down at the rucked-up blankets. "If, uh. If you meant all that stuff, then I'm—I'm with you. All the way."

"I meant it." Fingertips brush his knee. "You think you can believe it?"

He nods, stupid heat rising behind his eyes.

"And you think you can believe it in the spirit in which it's meant, and not assume that I mean the worst every time I open my damn mouth?" He jerks his head up to find Sam watching him with raised eyebrows, mouth turned up at one corner. "Oh, and maybe when I want to touch you outside the bedroom, if you wouldn't flip out and try to punch me, that'd be good, if you could—"

"I'll punch you now," Dean says, shoving Sam back against the headboard.

Sam lets out an _oof_ but catches his arm, reels him in close.

"My little brother is a dick," Dean says, grumbling to anyone who will listen.

Sam grins at him, eyes crinkled and happy, and it hits Dean in the gut just like it always has, but he really gets to know why, now. "My big brother is a jerk," he says, hand cupping Dean's face. Dean rolls his eyes, put-upon, but then he's pulled in close and his response is lost into Sam's smiling mouth.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written both so that I could try to figure out what the hell was happening in Dean's head, but also so I could try to depict how I think the Winchesters would actually act in a mildly kinky relationship. (The kink level is incredibly mild, but Dean seems to have an outsize reaction to it because of his particular background/mindset.) Specifically, I wanted to write a long-form serious communication errors story in which the communication errors happened on both sides--hopefully it worked.
> 
> I don't anticipate writing anything else in this series, because hopefully now the Winchesters will follow through on their promise to work on their communication skills. I hope that it worked for you if you made it this far and would really appreciate any thoughts if you'd like to leave a comment.
> 
> Also: I have a semi-active tumblr, where I am happy to talk about stuff: zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com


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